本論文，目地在於以柏拉圖派注重知行合一，從練身的角度探究作者主體的時間。此以主體之身時所再現的空間呈現作者的光學既機械世界。其典型之代表作為《序曲》及 《抒情歌謠》。此面向之探討主體，源於現代科學之父笛卡爾之哲學理論與身體實踐。
再者，序曲及抒情歌謠被視為懺悔錄，為一種認知心智的科學技術：懺悔既得知真理，亦是鍛鍊身體內功。懺悔錄之內容皆為作者所認知的記憶時光，既黑白分明的〈點點光陰〉(“spots of time”)。因為這些時空點皆是主體生命中批判的片刻：這些片刻使其靈魂不斷地產生不安，總是陷其於恐懼或是美麗的境界, 同時也是一個停滯的時點，既是使詩人產生向心或離心的時點及其身體回原點的變迭狀態。
為了闡明作者之光學既機械觀點，此論文除了討論傳統及現代對作者時空點的批判外 並追溯從柏拉圖至德勒茲之聯想哲學理論。鑑此，此論文亦間接地解釋了幾個重要的機械術語：體轉、性能、化圓、零點的引力等等。
此論文論述主張，渥滋華斯之懺悔錄可類比於笛卡爾之機械心智理論：時空之虛擬性，源自主體自身之性德所至，一方面藉由作者使其身體内力之實驗屈從於心智想像思維創作之中﹔另一方面又藉由作者化其時間之行為及其對客體之命名為永恆的真理，因而使此浪漫詩人得君子之美名。

Unlike most Wordsworthian studies, this dissertation aims to investigate Wordsworth in the perspective of physis/physics/physiology. It looks into Wordsworth’s world as an optic world (in which imagination is seen as “visionary gleam” and life is found to be full of “spots of time”) and as a mechanical world (in which circle, torsion, gravity, etc., are working entities for natural or human beings). It takes for its scope of study two main works of Wordsworth’s, namely, The Prelude and the Lyrical Ballads. And it refers to several Western thinkers, especially Descartes, for the physical investigation of the works. In addition, both The Prelude and the Lyrical Ballads are considered to be confessional works, explicitly and implicitly. To confess is to recognize “truth” and “virtue” (in the sense of power, force, or strength as well as in the sense of moral goodness). What Wordsworth recognizes, as expressed in both works, are the dark and light “spots of time,” which are the critical moments that foster the poet’s soul with fear and beauty, that stop life’s temporary motion or torsion with its centrifugal and centripetal forces, that make possible the replacement of the x axis of space and the y axis of time with the z axis of universal eternity, and that lead the poet to go through a full circle and enter the zero point of gravity, where mechanical motion becomes everlasting rest and “renovated virtue” becomes pure soul.
In order to explicate the optical and mechanical views on Wordsworth, the dissertation traces philosophical ideas from Plato to Deleuze besides reviewing some modern Wordsworthian studies on the “spots of time.” Furthermore, it explains such technical terms as torsion, virtue, circle, and 0 of gravity, in consideration of the dual aspects of quantity and quality, motion and rest, centrifugal and centripetal forces, nature and society, fact and imagination, space and time, x axis and y axis, body and soul, etc. The dissertation concludes that Wordsworth’s confessional literature is closely related to Descartes’ mechanical versus mental ideas, especially in the sense that to “virtualize” the “spots of time” is to idealistically make them both “virtual” by subordinating physical nature and actual fact to the mind’s imaginative creation, and “virtuous” by elevating the temporary deeds and names to the permanent truth and fame.

Works Cited

Abrams, M.H. “Romantic Analogues of Art and Mind.” The Mirror and the Lamp. New York: Norton, 1953. 47-69.

-----, et al., eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 5th Ed. Vol.2. New York: Norton, 1986.

-----. “The Design of the Prelude: Wordsworth’s Long Journey Home.” William Wordsworth: The Prelude 1799, 1805, 1850. Ed. Jonathan Wordsworth, et al. New York & London: W. W. Norton, 1979. 565-84.

Adam, Hazard. Critical Theory Since Plato. Rev. Ed. Irvine: California UP, 1992.
Averill, James. Wordsworth and the Poetry of Human Suffering.London: Cornell UP, 1980.

Beckson, Karl, and Authur Gens, eds. Literary Terms: A Dictionary. 3nd. Ed. New York: Noonday Press, 1989.

Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich. “Discourse in the Novel.” The Dialogic Imagination. Texas: University of Texas Press, 1981. 260-366.

Barth, J. Robert. “The Temporal Imagination in Wordsworth’s Prelude: Time and the Timeless.” Thought 66 (1991): 139-50.

Baron, Michael. Language and Relationship in Wordsworth’s Writing. London and New York: Longman House, 1995.

Bennett a Cerf, John Keats and Percy Byssche Shelley. Complete Poetical Works. New York: Random House,1820.

Bishop, Jonathan. “Wordsworth and the ‘spots of time.'” Journal of English Literary History 26(1959): 47.

Bloom, Harold. “The Scene of Instruction: ‘Tintern Abbey.'” William Wordsworth. New York: Chelson House,1985. 113-36.

-----. “Home at Grasmere.” William Wordsworth. New York: Chelson House, 1985. 173-91.

Burtt, Edwin Arthur. The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical

Science: A Historical and Critical Essay. London: Routledge, 1924. 300-30.

Coleridge, S.T. Biographia Literaria. Ed. J. Shawcross. Vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1968. xi-xcvii. and 65-74.

Cirlot, J. E. The Dictionary of Symbols. trans. Jack Sage.New York: Philosophical Liberty, 1962.

Daft, Richard L. Organization and Theory and Design.Ohio: South-Western College, 2001.

Deleuze, Gilles, and Félix Guattari. Anti-Oedipus:Capitalism and Schizophreniz. Ed. and trans. Robert Hurley, et al. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1983.

-----. The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. trans. Tom Conley. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1993.

-----. Essays: Clinical and Critical. trans. Daniel W. Smith and Michael A. Greco. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1993.

-----. The Logic of Sense. Ed. Constantin V. Boundas. New York: Columbia UP, 1990.

Descartes, Rene. “Rules for the Direction of the Mind.” The Philosophical Works: Descartes. Vol. 1. Ed. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1968. 1-78.

-----. “Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducing the Reason.” The Philosophical Works: Descartes. Vol. 1. Ed. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge Up, 1968. 79-130.

-----. “Meditations on First Philosophy.” The Philosophical Works: Descartes. Vol. 1. Ed. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1968. 131-200.
-----. Letter of the Author.” The Philosophical Works:Descartes. Vol. 1. Ed. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1968.

-----. “The Principles of Philosophy.” The Philosophical Works: Descartes. Vol. 1. Ed. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1968. 203-302.

-----. “The Search after Truth.” The Philosophical Works: Descartes. Vol. 1. Ed. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1968. 303-28.

-----. “The Passions of the Soul.” The Philosophical Works: Descartes. Vol. 1. Ed. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1968. 329-428.

-----. “Notes Directed Against a Certain Programmme.” The Philosophy Works: Descartes. Vol. 1. Ed. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1968. 429-50.

-----. “The Principles of Philosophy.” The Philosophy Works: Descartes. Vol. 1. Ed. Elizabeth S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1968. 429-50.

-----. Rene Descartes: Principles of Philosophy. trans.Valentine Rodger Miller Reese P. Miller, eds. London, Boston, and Holland: Dordrecht and D. Reidel Esblishing Company, 1983.

-----. Treatise of Man: Rene Descartes. trans. Thomas teele Hall. Cambridge and Massachusetts: Harvard UP,1972.

Durrant, Geoffrey. Wordsworth and the Great System: A Study of Wordsworth’s Poetic Universe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1970. 1-31.

Ellis, David. Wordsworth Freud and the Spots of Human Suffering. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1885.

Einstein, Albert. Albert Einstein: Relativity. UK: Methuen & Co. Ltd, 1920.

Eugene L. Stelzitg. All Shades of Consciousness: Wordsworth’s Poetry and the Self in Time. The Hague: Mouton, 1975.

Ferry, David. The Limits of Mortality: An Essay on Wordsworth’s Major Poems. Westport: Greenwood Press,1978.

Foster, Russell G. and Leon Kreitzman. Rhythms of Life: The Biological Clocks that Control the Daily Lives of Every Living Things. trans. Hwang Rong Jai. Taipei: Commonwealth Publishing Co., 2005.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: An Introduction. Vol.1. New York: Vintage Books, 1990. 15-64.

-----. The Order of Things: Archaeology of The Human Sciences. Ed. R. K. Laing. London: Routledge, 1974.

Freud, Sigmund. A Case of Hysteria, Three Essays on Sexuality and Other Works. trans. James Strachey. London: Hogarth Press, 1953.

-----. The Ego and The Id. Ed. James Strachey. New York: Norton, 1960.Friedman, Michael. The Making of a Tory Humanist Wordsworth and the Ideal of Community. New York: Columbia UP, 1979.

Friedman, Jonathan. Cultural Identity & Global Process. London: Sage, 1994.

Gallie, W.B. “Is The Prelude a Philosophical Poem?” The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850. Ed. Jonathan Wordsworth, et al. New York and London: Norton, 1979. 663-78.

Ganguly, Aritro and Rangeet Senqupta. “Memory in Romanticism: Mnemosyne, Plasticity, and Emotion Recollected in Tranquility.” www.literature-study- online.

Gau, Tshi Yuao. Scripture, Truth, Fixed Laws. Taipei: Charity Temple, 1999.

George, A. J. Selections from Wordsworth. Boston: D.C. Heath & Co., 1889.

Goodchild, Philip. Deleuze and Guattari: An Introduction to the Politics of Desire. London: Sage Publications, 1996.

Haefner, Joel. “Displacement and the Reading of Romantic Space.” Wordsworth Circle 23(1992): 151-56.

Harman, Geoffrey H. Wordsworth’s Poetry: 1787-1814. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1977.

-----. “A Poet’s Progress: Wordsworth and the Via Naturaliter Negativa.” William Wordsworth: The Prelude 1799, 1805, 1850. Ed. M. H. Abrams, et, al. New York and London: Norton, 1979. 598-612.

Hartley, David. Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty and His Expectations (1479). New York: Garland Publishing, 1971.

Harvey, David. The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1990.

Havens, Raymond Dexter. The Mind of a Poet: A Study of Wordsworth’s Thought. Baltimore: John Hoking Press, 1979.

Holquist, Michael. Dialogism: Bakhtin and His World.London and New York: Routledge, 1990.

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge. Vol. I. M.A: Oxford, 1946.

In the Womb. Washington, D.C: National Geographical Channel: 2009, N. pag. www.ngc.com.tw.

James K. Kee. “Narrative time and Participating Consciousness: A Heidggerian Supplement of McGann’s The Romantic Ideology.” Romanticism Past and Present 1985): 56.

Jiang, Been Sheng. Water Knows the Answers the Hidden Messages in Water Crystals. trans. Chang An-Jing-Mei. Taipei: Solutions Publishing, 2005. Johnson, Don. “The Great Behind the Spots of Time.” American Image 45(1998):300.

Johnston, Kenneth R. The Hidden Wordsworth. New York: Norton & Company, 1998.

Kant, Immanuel. “Critique of Judgment.” Critical Theory Since Plato. Ed. Hazard Adams. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovch, 1992. 374-93.

-----. The Critique of Judgement. trans. James Creed Meredith. Oxford: Clarendon, 1952.

-----. Critique of Pure Reason. trans. Norman Kempt Smith. London: Macmillan, 1929.

Kenny, Anthony. Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy. New York: Random House, 1968.

Kabitoglou, E. Douka. Plato and The English Romantics. London and New York: Routledge, 1990.

Lindenberger, Herbert. On Wordsworth’s Prelude. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1963.Liu, Alan. “A Transformed Revolution: The Prelude,Books9-13.” Wordsworth: The Sense of History. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1989. 349-452.

Locke, John. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Ed. William Benton. London: Encyclopedia Britannica INC, 1978.93-251.

Lyotard, Jean Frangois. “Massive On Universal History.” The Post-Modern Explained: Correspondence 1982-1985.Minneapolis &. London: Up of Minnesota P, 1992. 17-37.

-----. Confession of St. Augustine. trans. Richard Beardsworth. Standford: Stanford UP, 2000.

MacIntyre, Alasdair. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame Press, 1981.

Man, Paul de. “Wordsworth and the Victorians.” The Rhetoric of Romanticism. New York: Columbia UP, 1984. 83-92.

-----. “Autobiography as De-facement.” Modern Language Notes 94 (1979): 919-30.

McFarland, Thomas. William Wordsworth: Intensity and Achievement. Oxford: Clarendon, 1992.

-----, ed. “Wordsworth on Man, on Nature, and on Human Life.” Studies in Romanticism 21 (1982): 609.

-----, ed. Romanticism and the Heritage of Rousseau.Oxford: Clarendon, 1995.

Mish, Frederick C, et al., eds. Merrian Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. 10th Ed. Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster Incorporation, 1998.

Moorman, Mary. William Wordsworth: A Biography (The Early Years 1770-1803). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957.

-----, ed. William Wordsworth: A Biography (The Later Years 1803-1850). New York: Oxford University Press, 1965.

Neufeldt, Victona, ed. Webster’s New World College Dictionary.New York: Macmillan, 1996.

Newton, Issac. Optics. trans. Andrew Motte. Chicago and London: Encyclopedia Britannica INC, 1952. 507-44.

-----. “Definitions.” Mathematical Principles of Natural History. trans. Andrew Motte. Chicago and London: Encyclopedia Britannica INC, 1952. 5-24.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. “Ecco Homo.” Basic Writings of Nietzsche. trans. Walter Kaufmann. New York: Modern Library, 1922. 657-845.

Ogden, John T. “The Structure of Imaginative Experience in Wordsworth’s Prelude.” The Wordsworth’s Circle 6(1975): 293.

Olney, James. “A Theory of Autobiography.” Metaphors of Self: The Meaning of Autobiography. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1972. 3-50.

Plato. “Plato.” Philosophy: History & Problems. Ed. Samuel Enoch Stumpf. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1989. 46-79.

-----. “Phaedo.” Dialogues of Plato. trans. Justin. D. Kaplan. New York: Pocket Books, 1950. 60-146.

Pythagoras. “The Mathematical Basis of All Things.”Philosophy: History & Problems. Ed. Samuel Enoch Stumpf. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1989. 9-12.

Rothenberg, David.Why Birds Sing: A Journey into the Mystery of Bird Song. trans. Wu Gi-Hang. Taipei: Locus, 2005.

Rousseau, Jeans-Jacques. The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. trans. J. M. Cohen. Middlesex: Penguin, 1954.

Shaw, Philip. The Prelude. Ed. Nigel Wood. Buckingham: Open UP,1993.

Selden, Raman.Practicing Theory and Reading Literature: An Introduction. New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1989.

Shillinger, Jack William Wordsworth: Selected Poems and Preface. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1965.

Socrates. “Socrates.” Philosophy: History & Problems. Ed. Samuel Enoch Stumpf. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1989. 34-45.

St. Augustine. Confessions. trans. R.S.Pine-Coffin. New York: Dorset Press, 1961.

Sue, An Dyi. Suitable Eating to Make Beautiful and Energetic. Gao Xiong: Cing Liang Yin, 2007.

Sun, Christopher. Creationism Versus Evolutionism.Taipei: Christopher Sun Evangelistic Association, 1983.

Tayor, L.S. “V. Ray Optics, Corpuscles and Waves.” An Anecdotal History of Optics from Aristophanes to Zernike. Maryland University: Electronical Engineering Department, 2009. 1-6. www.ece.umd.edu/~tayor/optics5.htm.

Thomas, Keith G. Wordsworth and Philosophy: Empiricism and Transcendentalism in the Poetry. London: UMI, 1989.

Tung, C.H. “A Critique on ‘In the Casket of Memory.’” The Fifth National Conference of English and American Literature 5(1994): 267-68.

Wade, Nicholas J. and Michael T. Swanston. Visual Perception: An Introduction. Dundee: Taylor & Francis Group, n.d. William Lynch, S.J. Christ and Apollo: The Dimensions of the Literary Imagination. New York: Sheed, 1960.

Wilson, John Dover. Leslie Stephen and Matthew Arnold As Critics of Wordsworth. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1939.

Willey, Basil. The Eighteenth Century Background: Studies on the Idea of Nature in the Thought of the Period. Boston: Beacon Press, 1940.

Winkler, R.O.C. Pelican Guide to English Literature, Blake to Byron. Ed. F. W. Bateson. London: n.p., 1957.

Wolman, Banjamin B, comps and ed. Dictionary of Behavioral Science. 2nd Ed. New York: Academic Press, 1989.

Woodward, Kathleen. “The Uncanny and the Running Man: Aging and Loren Eiseley’s All the Strange Hours.” Southern Humanities Review 16.1 (Winter 1982): 47-60.

Whitehead, Alfred North. “The Romantic Reaction.” Science and the Modern World. Condon: Cambridge UP, 1953. 75-94.

Wordsworth, Jonathan. William Wordsworth: Borders of Vision. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982.

-----, et. Al., eds. “Waiting for the Palfreys: The Great Prelude Debate.” Wordsworth Circle 17(1986): 19.

Wordsworth, William. The Prelude: 1799, 1805, 1850. Ed. Jonathan Wordsworth, et al. New York and London: Norton, 1979.

-----. Selections from Wordsworth. Ed. A. J. George. Boston: D. C. Heath, 1889.

-----. Prose Works. 3 Vols. Ed. W.J.B. Owen and Jane Worthington Smyser. Oxford: Clarendon, 1974.

Wu, Pauline Ling-Hwai. “Bakhtin’s ‘Existence as Dialogue’ and Wordsworth’s Confession.” Concentric: Studies in English Literature and Linguistics 28:1 (January 2002): 81-96.

Yu, Yow-Shan. “In the Casket of Memory: on Wordsworth’s ‘spots of time.’” The Fifth National Conference of English and American Literature 5(1994): 267-68.

Zhang, zhan quan. Nature and Technology of life. Taipei: Kang Xuan, 2002.